University of Nebraska Medical Center DigitalCommons@UNMC Training Institute Publication Series (TIPS) Wolfensberger Collection 2-1992 TIPS, Volume 11, No. 5 & 6, 1992 Wolf P. Wolfensberger Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/wolf_tips Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Wolfensberger, Wolf P., "TIPS, Volume 11, No. 5 & 6, 1992" (1992). Training Institute Publication Series (TIPS). 52. https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/wolf_tips/52 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Wolfensberger Collection at DigitalCommons@UNMC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Training Institute Publication Series (TIPS) by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNMC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I Editor / Publisher Wolf Wolfensberger Professor Division of Special Education Training Institute for Human Se~ice and Rehabilitation Planning, Leadership & Change Agentry 80S South Crouse Avenue 80S South Crouse Avenue Syracuse University Syracuse, New York 13244-2280 Syracuse, New York 13244-2280 U. S. A. Vol. 11, Nos. 5 & 6 TRAINING INSTITUTE Syracuse, New York February/April, 1992 PUBLICATION SERIES 13244-2280 One good reason why we have tended to go from 6 issues a year to frequent double issues is that our circulation is so disappointingly smail, and having fewer issues and mailings saves much money. However, we also have had other reasons, such as unanticipated events putting us behind in our schedule. One topic on which we have fallen badly behind is deathmaking, so this will be the major theme of this issue. Dealing with the deathmaking issue is not only a depressing and oppressing task at best, so to speak; but on top of it all, we have so much copy on it that merely selecting what to include and what to put unreported into our archives is an overwhelming chore. Therefore, even within the broad deathmaking domain, we decided to concentrate mostly on a few highly-selected themes, some of which are not often highlighted elsewhere. Deathmaking: The Construct of "Death Alliance" *Many people--mostly because of a misformed or as yet defective worldview-- refuse to believe that individuals, groups, parties, organizations, movements, ideologies, systems, states, nations, e t c ,, can enter into de facto death alliances. They may do this by committing their very identity to the promotion of death in the world (or at least in their domains), or they may enter into alliances (even if unexplicated) with other parties that have made such commitments, and enter into the goals of those other partries. Many countries or societies in history appear to have allied themselves deeply with death. Such alliances can be inferred from patterns of actions that are either extraordinarily intense or, more commonly, of a long-term nature, and that are apt to include an array of behaviors such as the following. The planning of/for, and working toward, future wars--and not just a single or simple war, but "programmatic" war. Engaging in frequent wars that are either offensive in nature, or motivated by economic enrichment. Patterns of genocide of other nations, societies, or races, which may include wars against these. The invention or production of new weapons and other means of destruction, particularly if these are more massive in their deathmaking capacity than previously existing weapons. -2- Oppression and impoverishment of other peoples and nations, even if carried out by means other than war, e.g., through colonization or economic policies. A history of having conquered and taken possession of many foreign lands, as in imperial colonization. Large-scale and cruel slavery. The setting of peoples against each other, as by inciting racial hatred. Domestic oppression, persecution, and deathmaking of devalued segments of the society's own populations, and especially the creation, mistreatment, and oppression of a large under-class. Large-scale systematic destructiveness toward the environment and the life- carrying capacity of the earth. Legitimization, and even legalization, of deathmaking on a large scale, as via capital punishment, abortion, infanticide, suicide, euthanasia. The embrace and exaltation of values which are counter to altruism, e.g., selfishness, competition, power-grabbing, materialism. Granted, some death alliances are more explicit, more intense, or more direct or more active than others, but once entered into one, it usually leads to more of all the above. ;'clnWorld War II, while involved in an external war, Germany conducted an internal war against the handicapped and the Jews. Today, our society carries out internal war against the handicapped, the poor, the elderly and the unborn. The TIPS editor has been predicting since the early 1970s that we would see an ever-decreasing demand for legitimization of various forms of "euthanasia." Around 1990, these developments took a quantum jump, in that 1990 and 1991 have seen vastly more such developments than in most single previous years other than 1973. As is often the case when one has been right in general outlines in predicting an evil, one sometimes fails to anticipate the exact form that the evil will take in its vast ingenuity. For almost 15 years, I had assumed that one of the major forms that "medical euthanasia" would surely take would be the one it had always been, namely the administration of poisons, or at least of a medicinal drug in deadly doses. While this has certainly come about, it really had not occurred to me that one of the most prominent modes of "euthanasia" would be the systematic planned starvation and dehydration to death that is not only already being practiced now, but for which there is a massive demand. I again remind people that 20 years ago, the general public that now largely endorses this would have recoiled in horror at this idea, and even the most ardent "euthanasia" advocates would have vehemently protested that they had nothing this cruel in mind. As deathmaking proceeds down its slippery slope, what happens over and over is that yesterday's extreme deathmaking proposal becomes today' s "middle-of-the-road" position, often also honored with adjectives such as rational, unemotional, reasonable etc. The death alliance of our society might as well be promoted and celebrated by one of the battle cries of the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War, "Viva la Muerte" ("long live death"). *A reader said in US News & World Report (30/10/89) that the US Congress and White House are acting in such a fashion that one gets the impression that they are agents of a foreign power "bent on weakening and finally destroying this nation." We would say that this reader perceived the death alliance of our society and its leaders. *The murder capital of the US also happens to be its political capital, which of course is highly symbolic. -3- -kIt was rather amusing to read in Time (22/1/90) that it considers "preposterous" the idea of American Negro leaders that there is a "white- orchestrated genocide plot" against them. What we find so amusing is that despite everything that we have learned, people still believe that a de facto genocide policy needs to be consciously devised and conspiratorially implemented. We point out over and over, in TIPS and our TI teaching, that some of the most overarching and systematic policies, developments and strategies can be in operation, as if ceaselessly and ingeniously coordinated by a never-sleeping high intelligence, without people being aware of what is going on, and with no one claiming to agree to it. = Some people speak of genetic engineering as the Auschwitz of biology. Deathmaking: Advocacy For & Against It Deathmaking Advocates *Here is a little inventory of people who have played prominent public roles in the promotion of abortion, "euthanasia," or suicide. Dr. Virginia Abernathy is a Vanderbilt philosopher-psychiatrist who, among others, promoted a "delayed personhood" construct that would allow the killing of infants. Pieter Admiraal is a Dutch physician who has promoted really big-time deathmaking of elderly and impaired people, not only in the Netherlands, but all over the world. David Callahan and Father Richard McCormick are among the Catholic spearheads of deathmakings along the above lines. The "bio-ethicist" Callahan (and probably others as well) have been using the phrase, "life-extending care," in those instances where the phrase "life-saving care" would be more appropriate. When you pull a drowning person out of the water, you are not "extending" the person's life but saving it, and we give life-saving rather than life-extending awards to such heros. When an elderly person has a life-threatening disease and one gives life-saving treatment, then calling this "life-extension" conveys the impression to others that this person has received something extra, rather than what other people might receive under the same circumstances--and yet it is precisely in connection with elderly people that Callahan has been using this euphemism. Not surprisingly, Callahan also referred to the elderly as a financial black hole, or at least so we were told. Dr. Ronald Cranford, a US neurologist, is one of the prominent promoters of deathmaking of people on life-supports. He coined--or at least made prominent--a new deathmaking phrase, "creatures of modern-day medicine." This phrase is used to refer not only to the people of impaired mentality who are being kept alive by high-tech equipment, but even by rather basic nursing care. He has claimed that they "lack personhood," and have no rights or interests to be protected (NRLN, 11 Feb. 91). His deathmakings include some very close to home, since he admitted hastening his mother-in-Iaw's death with morphine, and dehydrating to death some of his patients who still had consciousness and awareness of their environment.